


Never Gone

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Dreams, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-20 23:11:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/893000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Gone

**amaranth**  –  _n_  
an imaginary, undying flower

* * *

It wasn't easy.

It never is easy. Losing someone leaves a scar. A deep, visible wound that runs along the length of the heart that has lost. Loving someone in secret and then watching them die before getting a chance to confess only births regret; the kind of regret that never goes away. It lingers and fills the scar with its essence, burns the open wound like acid. Its sole purpose is to keep reminding one of what they'd wish to bury under layers of other troubles, and then decorate the ugly pile with the few good memories that they have left. Cover it all up so it's not as obvious, so that they can shout  _I'm okay!_  as many times as they might need without their voice breaking and their eyes filling with tears.

It's a beautiful memory, Jean recalls, the first time he met Marco. That first day of the military training when they were all dragged into more than their foolish, childish minds had bargained for.  _Compassion has never made a soldier._  True, but that day, compassion has brought two unlikely people together. That hand extending towards Jean's exhausted figure, that strength pulling him up from the mud, that  _smile_ , such a compelling gesture, urging one to be twice as kind in return. He remembers it all too well.

That's when it had started.

After that, it spiraled into more than Jean could grasp. Each salute brought more respect, each glance brought more trust, each  _word_  pulled Jean deeper into the whirlwind of emotions he didn't know how to decode. When it hit him, it was foolish, it was terrifying and it was so incredible he almost gave himself away and messed up the bond he and Marco shared then.  _I mustn't say a thing_ , was the mantra that held him back. The rest of their lives might have turned out differently if only he said something. But he didn't.

Sometimes the good memories invade his dreams. He dreams of that first meeting, of Marco's hand once more reaching for him to lift him up. But he thinks the dream must be altered somehow, because this is not how he remembers it. In this dream, he sees amaranth tangled in Marco's hair, and he is smiling at Jean the way only a lover would.

Must be the dream just messing with his head, he thinks when he wakes up.


End file.
